To commemorate the Day, “let us speak with one voice against the perpetrators of torture, and for all who suffer at their hands,” Mr. Ban said in a message. “And let us build a better, more humane world for all people everywhere.”

Twenty years ago today, the Convention against Torture went into force, “yet even after two decades, this instrument falls well short of universal ratification,” he observed, urging all countries who have yet to do so to join the treaty.

Mr. Ban also lauded the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which he characterized as “another milestone in the struggle to eliminate torture.”  Signing on to this new treaty – which opened for signature this past year – “will prove an unequivocal expression of the international community’s determination to address not only torture but also its most egregious enabling conditions,” the Secretary-General noted.

Echoing Mr. Ban’s call for universal ratification of the Convention against Torture, other UN experts, led by High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, issued a joint statement condemning the use of torture.  On this Day, “we pay tribute to all Governments, civil society organizations and individuals engaged in activities aimed at preventing torture, punishing it and ensuring that all victims obtain redress and have an enforceable right to fair and adequate compensation, including the means for full rehabilitation as possible,” the group said.

For its part, Alkarama for Human Rights, which has submitted many cases of torture in the Arab world to responsible UN bodies, calls on the remaining Arab states to ratify this treaty and its Article 22, which mandates in its first paragraph that “A State Party to this Convention may at any time declare under this article that it recognizes the competence of the Committee to receive and consider communications from or on behalf of individuals subject to its jurisdiction who claim to be victims of a violation by a State Party of the provisions of the Convention. No communication shall be received by the Committee if it concerns a State Party to the Convention which has not made such a declaration.”

Alkarama also expresses its deep concern at the practice of Arab governments, and Western ones colluding with them, in systematically using torture and mistreatment under the guise of fighting terrorism, and makes the following demands of them:

1. To abide by their international commitments regarding torture and respect the treaties they have signed.

2. To allow human rights and humanitarian organisations to observe the prisons and the conditions of torture victims in them.

3. To pay special attention to all complaints regarding torture, and make sure to protect the victims and their relatives from reprisals.

4. To hand the perpetrators over to justice to be tried.

Alkarama for Human Rights

Geneva, 26/06/2007